FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN AMID THE CRISES OF 2025-2026: BETWEEN MIDDLE EASTERN CONFRONTATION AND EURASIAN DIVERSIFICATION

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran amid the weakening of its Middle Eastern forward-defence system in 2024 and the crises that followed in 2025-2026. Rather than assuming that Iran has completed a geopolitical "pivot to the East," the study asks whether mounting systemic constraints have altered the functional distribution of Tehran's foreign-policy priorities. The analytical framework combines neoclassical realism with an examination of inter-elite interactions as a domestic intervening variable. To capture the outcome of this process, the article develops the concept of constrained functional foreign-policy diversification. Using process tracing, comparative political analysis and institutional analysis, it reconstructs the sequence linking the erosion of Iran's regional strategic depth, the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government in December 2024, the weakening of the Axis of Resistance, the twelve-day Iran-Israel war of 2025 and the subsequent escalation. The findings indicate that these shocks increased the costs of Iran's established Middle Eastern strategy while raising the relative value of ties with Russia, China, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS and the states of Central Asia. Yet the Eurasian dimension does not replace the Middle East as the principal arena of security and deterrence, nor does it eliminate Iran's financial, technological and sanctions-related vulnerabilities. The article concludes that Iran's current foreign policy is best understood as constrained functional diversification, in which different regional and institutional arenas perform distinct tasks, but their compensatory capacities remain uneven and incomplete.